By all rights, Saturday's rematch of former world champions Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. at Las Vegas' Mandalay Bay Events Center should be inciting frenzied, worldwide interest. It is, after all, a pairing of legendary fighters, surefire first-ballot Hall of Famers with global name recognition. The fact that the two men don't like each other and have made noises to that effect for quite some time should add a pinch of spice to a bout that, as they used to say about those cast-of-thousands Hollywood epics, has been years in the making.
Trouble is, this fight isn't quite as epic as it should have been. It has been too many years - 17 - in the making. When last Hopkins and Jones fought, on May 22, 1993, in Washington's RFK Stadium, it was for the vacant IBF middleweight championship. Jones, who claims to have fought with an injured right hand that night, won a lackluster unanimous decision that did not portend of the ring greatness each fighter would go on to achieve. What's more, it was an undercard scrap, in support of WBA heavyweight champ Riddick Bowe's second-round knockout of Jesse Ferguson, a one-time sparring partner to the stars whose dream shot at the title quickly turned into a high-paying nightmare.
It wasn't long before the technically superb Hopkins and unconventionally brilliant Jones rose to boxing's uppermost tier. But the rematch everyone wanted to see for so long never came about because the fighters had massive egos to match their massive purse demands, a set of circumstances that made it virtually impossible to arrive at contract terms with which each could live.Even those most interested in seeing these two antagonists mix it up again think that the sequel is at least 6 years past its natural expiration date. Oh, sure, Hopkins (50-5-1, 32 KOs) is still widely considered to be among the top five pound-for-pound fighters in the world at the improbable age of 45, but Jones (54-6, 40 KOs), at 41, has seen his once-glowing star power dim considerably in recent years. He was a one-punch knockout victim of Antonio Tarver in May 2004 and was battered unconscious in nine rounds by Glen Johnson 4 months later. Joe Calzaghe beat Jones bloody in winning a one-sided unanimous decision in November 2008 and, most tellingly, the Pensacola, Fla., native was stopped in one round by Danny Green in Australia last Dec. 2.
The shockingly quick ending of Jones' Aussie excursion should have put an end to renewed talks of his again taking on Hopkins, who outpointed Enrique Ornelas on the same date at the Liacouras Center. Just as shockingly, it didn't.
So why is the fight that the public wasn't exactly clamoring for coming off anyway? Because the revenge-minded Hopkins has an old score to settle, his partners at Golden Boy Promotions want to keep him happy and, well, Jones has lost considerable leverage to make outlandish demands.
Even the suits at HBO, who formerly were so hot to do Hopkins-Jones II, have cooled to the idea.
"We are distributing the fight [via pay-per-view], but we are not televising it ourselves," said Kery Davis, senior vice president of HBO Sports. "Make of that what you will."
Davis, though, figures he'll watch the fight, perhaps out of force of habit.
"Given my history with these guys," Davis acknowledged, "my curiosity probably will get the better of me."
That history includes fruitless hours at the bargaining table, trying to narrow the chasm between two proud, obstinant men who rejected every proferred compromise.
"The very first fight I tried to get done after Lou [DiBella] left [in 2001] was Hopkins-Jones II," Davis recalled. "We did a Hopkins fight on a Jones undercard in Indianapolis in 2000, with the idea of it leading to a rematch between them.
"It was a hellacious negotiation. Just awful. And, obviously, things didn't work out.
"Then Hopkins was involved in the middleweight unification tournament [in 2001]. He wins that, beating [Felix] Trinidad for the undisputed championship. But beating Trinidad still did not make Hopkins a household name. He needed another big fight, so, again, we had a conversation about doing Hopkins-Jones II. We did a split telecast with Jones fighting in Florida and Hopkins in Reading. They talked back and forth to each other during the telecast. Again, I thought the fight was going to happen. Again, it didn't."
Hopkins-Jones II could surprise everyone and be a candidate for fight of the year. Jones, a 4-1 underdog, could even pull off the upset; he claims he was better than Hopkins in 1993, he's better now, he'll be better forever.
Regardless of the outcome, what seems certain is that not all good things come to those who wait, especially if the wait extends beyond the boundaries of logic. *
fernanb@phillynews.com
Source: philly.com
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